Be United
1 Corinthians 1:10-13
I appeal to you, brothers and sisters, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree with one another in what you say and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be perfectly united in mind and thought. My brothers and sisters, some from Chloe’s household have informed me that there are quarrels among you. What I mean is this: One of you says, “I follow Paul”; another, “I follow Apollos”; another, “I follow Cephas ”; still another, “I follow Christ.” Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Were you baptized in the name of Paul?
We all agree that the end time is here. But most of us, I mean the Christians, are not doing anything about it. "Ya I know we are living in the end times now, we should pray more often". But they go back to their busyness, gossiping, partying, and forget about God.
If you look at what is happening around the world, you can see that people are getting more evil. Why? Because the devil knows that his time is almost up, he wants to recruit as many people as he can. You can see that Satan is working extra harder to convince you to switch to the dark side. Everytime a believer decided to follow God and surrender to Him, Satan will immediately put thoughts into our mind that makes us doubt God and His existence. But notice this, when you have succumb to the Satan's suggestion to forget about God and take control of your own life, you realised that your life is somehow empty, you easily get depressed, you tend to complain about everything, you easily get agitated, you feel anger towards people around you. But when you surrender your life to God, you will feel peace, you will see God's footprints in your life, you feel love towards the people around you.
It is difficult for us to fight Satan alone. Satan is a powerful devil, we should not underestimate him. Satan knows the Bible more than us. He can twist God's words and present it to us in a believable way. So, how can we fight him?
God calls for UNITY among the believers. We cannot fight the spiritual battle alone. We need our fellow believers to fight the battle together.
1. Be in a Church
Join a Church and try your best to be regular in your attendance. It is important to meet fellow believers to hear about God through God's appointed Church leader. Be careful in choosing a Church. When you are visiting a Church, check the preacher's sermon against the Bible. I am not at all encouraging to be suspicious of every pastors there is. But we want to choose a Church that focus on God's true teaching. We should choose a church that encourages the congregations to self-reflect regularly. Do not go to a "lukewarm" church. There are churches that mostly preach about God's grace without teaching God's most important command, which is to "Go and make disciples of all nations". We should be grateful for being saved. But does the story end there? God saves us and He has a purpose for us. All Christians are called to do His works. Matthew 3:8 says, "Produce fruit in keeping with repentance." Firstly, there should be a change seen in our life when we repent and there should be an effort from our side to want to do His works.
2. Join Cell Group
Don't just attend Church, but join the cell group. It is very vital that every believer belongs to a cell group. It is important for us to have accountability. Cell group members can encourages us, spurs us on, advice us, pray for us and basically be there for us when we are in need. Through cell group, our faith will be strengthened as we hear about how God works in other members' life.
BE UNITED!
Let's Pray
Dear God, thank you for my Church and thank you for my Cell group members and leader. I pray that as we are created differently and have different way of thinking, we will be in the same mind in Christ Jesus. May we be united, having the same understanding about Your will for us that we may work together in one Spirit. I invite the Holy Spirit to be with us whenever we meet that we will utter only words of encouragement and that we may spur each other that we will not idle in our spiritual growth. In Jesus Name I pray. Amen!
I appeal to you, brothers and sisters, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree with one another in what you say and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be perfectly united in mind and thought. My brothers and sisters, some from Chloe’s household have informed me that there are quarrels among you. What I mean is this: One of you says, “I follow Paul”; another, “I follow Apollos”; another, “I follow Cephas ”; still another, “I follow Christ.” Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Were you baptized in the name of Paul?
We all agree that the end time is here. But most of us, I mean the Christians, are not doing anything about it. "Ya I know we are living in the end times now, we should pray more often". But they go back to their busyness, gossiping, partying, and forget about God.
If you look at what is happening around the world, you can see that people are getting more evil. Why? Because the devil knows that his time is almost up, he wants to recruit as many people as he can. You can see that Satan is working extra harder to convince you to switch to the dark side. Everytime a believer decided to follow God and surrender to Him, Satan will immediately put thoughts into our mind that makes us doubt God and His existence. But notice this, when you have succumb to the Satan's suggestion to forget about God and take control of your own life, you realised that your life is somehow empty, you easily get depressed, you tend to complain about everything, you easily get agitated, you feel anger towards people around you. But when you surrender your life to God, you will feel peace, you will see God's footprints in your life, you feel love towards the people around you.
It is difficult for us to fight Satan alone. Satan is a powerful devil, we should not underestimate him. Satan knows the Bible more than us. He can twist God's words and present it to us in a believable way. So, how can we fight him?
God calls for UNITY among the believers. We cannot fight the spiritual battle alone. We need our fellow believers to fight the battle together.
1. Be in a Church
Join a Church and try your best to be regular in your attendance. It is important to meet fellow believers to hear about God through God's appointed Church leader. Be careful in choosing a Church. When you are visiting a Church, check the preacher's sermon against the Bible. I am not at all encouraging to be suspicious of every pastors there is. But we want to choose a Church that focus on God's true teaching. We should choose a church that encourages the congregations to self-reflect regularly. Do not go to a "lukewarm" church. There are churches that mostly preach about God's grace without teaching God's most important command, which is to "Go and make disciples of all nations". We should be grateful for being saved. But does the story end there? God saves us and He has a purpose for us. All Christians are called to do His works. Matthew 3:8 says, "Produce fruit in keeping with repentance." Firstly, there should be a change seen in our life when we repent and there should be an effort from our side to want to do His works.
2. Join Cell Group
Don't just attend Church, but join the cell group. It is very vital that every believer belongs to a cell group. It is important for us to have accountability. Cell group members can encourages us, spurs us on, advice us, pray for us and basically be there for us when we are in need. Through cell group, our faith will be strengthened as we hear about how God works in other members' life.
BE UNITED!
Let's Pray
Dear God, thank you for my Church and thank you for my Cell group members and leader. I pray that as we are created differently and have different way of thinking, we will be in the same mind in Christ Jesus. May we be united, having the same understanding about Your will for us that we may work together in one Spirit. I invite the Holy Spirit to be with us whenever we meet that we will utter only words of encouragement and that we may spur each other that we will not idle in our spiritual growth. In Jesus Name I pray. Amen!
Comments
Post a Comment